Part 1
He was on fire. Inside and out. He’d once accidentally touched the tip of a soldering iron when his brother was working on his hobby, creating old electronics. It was like that, but everywhere, only never at the same time, the burn moving across and through his body. He was nowhere. He was no one. He had died.
There was a form in front of him, through the dazzling patterns of light and the cold absences of anything, and ancient form out of time, like some paleolithic rounded statue. He instantly recognized it as a mother form, a figure in shroud with arms raised out to him, arms he knew were loving and his only chance at being saved in this
Hell
Darkness
The sound of a medical tricorder, the smell of antiseptic and the background of the kinds of scents that ship’s medical staffs kept in sickbays to make patients feel calmer, but which always ended up smelling like sickbay. Fresh baked bread and ketone.
“He’s coming to consciousness, doc.” Someone said.
His eyes weren’t working. He tried opening them, but it was all too bright. So much different from the fire and darkness of that eternity.
“Ensign Nikosi, this is Argral, I am a doctor here onboard the Unity. Blink if you can hear me.”
He blinked. It was easy. Anyone could blink. His mouth opened. “You’re.. Tellarite?” he said, recognizing the sound of the doctor’s voice and accent.
“That’s right. And you are one lucky butterbar. Do you remember what happened?”
He didn’t, not really. He tried to open his eyes again, and the big bright blur became a slightly less bright blur as his irises adjusted. Life before came back to him. “I was transporting to my assignment from SFA. Wait.. I “ he was confused.
“That’s right, to your billet on the USS Proxima Centauri” she answered. “There was a transporter accident.”
He remembered stepping onto the transporter pad. It had been his first time. Somehow, he’d simply never beamed anywhere before. He was born on earth, took shuttle trips to Luna and Titan with his family growing up on vacation, but the need had simply never come up. He remembered being interested in it, but mostly excited about his first assignment after graduation. He was going to be working on board one of the new Oberth class vessels. He looked around at gray metallic walls, the sound of the ventilators, everything. The doctor had said Unity.
Confusion set in, and his body tingled like a leg or arm falling asleep only to come back to life again in an overload of nerve sensations. He shuddered. He never felt the hypo spray that sent him into wonderful sleep.
A week had passed. He had a new set of uniforms from the replicator that matched everyone else’s. They certainly loved their grey as much they loved maroon in his time. His time. That was ninety years ago. The USS Unity was a Sovereign Class ship, one of the best, he was proudly told. And he’d simply showed up in the middle of a cargo hold as she was leaving Earth orbit on her a mission to patrol the edge of the R-MZ So the Unity broke out of Orbit, and stayed put in region of Sol while Starfleet decided what to do about him. Apart from scanning him a few times, giving him a change of clothes and a bunk, no one bothered him much. He wasn’t allowed a PADD, and contact was kept at a minimum from the other lower-deckers.
“We need to avoid timestream contamination in case we can get you back to your proper time. It’s all obscure but there are rules. Rules for everything, as they say.” the captain, a serious looking but kind voiced Denobulan whose name everyone seemed to have trouble saying explained. “But optimism, Ensign! Answers no-doubt will be forthcoming.” The captain had put a reassuring hand on the Ensign’s shoulder.
He should feel something, some remorse for losing everyone he knew, or despair, or curiosity. Something. But mostly he felt seared, like steak on a hot griddle. Something had happened, and it had charred him on his surface, and maybe deep down.
Today he was jogging down the outer disk corridor deck 3, set aside during certain hours of the day for physical training. It felt good to get the muscles working, to exert himself, to concentrate on the path ahead and the feel of his own breath. The Unity had paused on her way out of Sol system at no where in particular, and so the sky out the window was a stillness of stars and nothing else, somewhere in the meaninglessness of the Oort Cloud. While he jogged along with other people getting their PT done, it didn’t matter that he didn’t belong here, that he got stares but no greetings, that his meal schedules were not subtly arranged so that he sat mostly alone with an obvious security detail overlooking him while they ate silently and pretended to discuss politics.
“Ensign Nikosi to conference room C-47.” He heard over his com-badge. It was the purposefully flat sond of a ship's computer, so it was official. He felt down for a communicator then remembered it was his badge. He stopped, catching his breath for a second and tapped the badge, responding “Acknowledged. On my way.” He took the nearest turbolift.
The conference room was plain. A table, chairs in mauve fabric and some Vulcan impressionist sand art that almost looked picked at random on the walls. The two people, human male and female, sitting at the table, did not salute nor stood up as he entered. They did not wear Starfleet uniforms, but instead both had something between a 21st century business suit and a cassock. Depending on the angle one looked at the fabric it was either black, dark blue or a blood red.
They both motioned simultaneously to him to sit with matching gestures but said not a word. He felt uneasy as he took a seat down below him. “You guys ah are.. like time agents or something?” he had heard rumors. Everyone heard rumors about them. Unlike silly tales of the some mysterious Section 57 or whatever the number was, it was probably even true, and in truth he’d been expecting something like this.
“No sir” the first said.
“We’re musicians” the other continued.
He was on fire. Inside and out. He’d once accidentally touched the tip of a soldering iron when his brother was working on his hobby, creating old electronics. It was like that, but everywhere, only never at the same time, the burn moving across and through his body. He was nowhere. He was no one. He had died.
There was a form in front of him, through the dazzling patterns of light and the cold absences of anything, and ancient form out of time, like some paleolithic rounded statue. He instantly recognized it as a mother form, a figure in shroud with arms raised out to him, arms he knew were loving and his only chance at being saved in this
Hell
Darkness
The sound of a medical tricorder, the smell of antiseptic and the background of the kinds of scents that ship’s medical staffs kept in sickbays to make patients feel calmer, but which always ended up smelling like sickbay. Fresh baked bread and ketone.
“He’s coming to consciousness, doc.” Someone said.
His eyes weren’t working. He tried opening them, but it was all too bright. So much different from the fire and darkness of that eternity.
“Ensign Nikosi, this is Argral, I am a doctor here onboard the Unity. Blink if you can hear me.”
He blinked. It was easy. Anyone could blink. His mouth opened. “You’re.. Tellarite?” he said, recognizing the sound of the doctor’s voice and accent.
“That’s right. And you are one lucky butterbar. Do you remember what happened?”
He didn’t, not really. He tried to open his eyes again, and the big bright blur became a slightly less bright blur as his irises adjusted. Life before came back to him. “I was transporting to my assignment from SFA. Wait.. I “ he was confused.
“That’s right, to your billet on the USS Proxima Centauri” she answered. “There was a transporter accident.”
He remembered stepping onto the transporter pad. It had been his first time. Somehow, he’d simply never beamed anywhere before. He was born on earth, took shuttle trips to Luna and Titan with his family growing up on vacation, but the need had simply never come up. He remembered being interested in it, but mostly excited about his first assignment after graduation. He was going to be working on board one of the new Oberth class vessels. He looked around at gray metallic walls, the sound of the ventilators, everything. The doctor had said Unity.
Confusion set in, and his body tingled like a leg or arm falling asleep only to come back to life again in an overload of nerve sensations. He shuddered. He never felt the hypo spray that sent him into wonderful sleep.
A week had passed. He had a new set of uniforms from the replicator that matched everyone else’s. They certainly loved their grey as much they loved maroon in his time. His time. That was ninety years ago. The USS Unity was a Sovereign Class ship, one of the best, he was proudly told. And he’d simply showed up in the middle of a cargo hold as she was leaving Earth orbit on her a mission to patrol the edge of the R-MZ So the Unity broke out of Orbit, and stayed put in region of Sol while Starfleet decided what to do about him. Apart from scanning him a few times, giving him a change of clothes and a bunk, no one bothered him much. He wasn’t allowed a PADD, and contact was kept at a minimum from the other lower-deckers.
“We need to avoid timestream contamination in case we can get you back to your proper time. It’s all obscure but there are rules. Rules for everything, as they say.” the captain, a serious looking but kind voiced Denobulan whose name everyone seemed to have trouble saying explained. “But optimism, Ensign! Answers no-doubt will be forthcoming.” The captain had put a reassuring hand on the Ensign’s shoulder.
He should feel something, some remorse for losing everyone he knew, or despair, or curiosity. Something. But mostly he felt seared, like steak on a hot griddle. Something had happened, and it had charred him on his surface, and maybe deep down.
Today he was jogging down the outer disk corridor deck 3, set aside during certain hours of the day for physical training. It felt good to get the muscles working, to exert himself, to concentrate on the path ahead and the feel of his own breath. The Unity had paused on her way out of Sol system at no where in particular, and so the sky out the window was a stillness of stars and nothing else, somewhere in the meaninglessness of the Oort Cloud. While he jogged along with other people getting their PT done, it didn’t matter that he didn’t belong here, that he got stares but no greetings, that his meal schedules were not subtly arranged so that he sat mostly alone with an obvious security detail overlooking him while they ate silently and pretended to discuss politics.
“Ensign Nikosi to conference room C-47.” He heard over his com-badge. It was the purposefully flat sond of a ship's computer, so it was official. He felt down for a communicator then remembered it was his badge. He stopped, catching his breath for a second and tapped the badge, responding “Acknowledged. On my way.” He took the nearest turbolift.
The conference room was plain. A table, chairs in mauve fabric and some Vulcan impressionist sand art that almost looked picked at random on the walls. The two people, human male and female, sitting at the table, did not salute nor stood up as he entered. They did not wear Starfleet uniforms, but instead both had something between a 21st century business suit and a cassock. Depending on the angle one looked at the fabric it was either black, dark blue or a blood red.
They both motioned simultaneously to him to sit with matching gestures but said not a word. He felt uneasy as he took a seat down below him. “You guys ah are.. like time agents or something?” he had heard rumors. Everyone heard rumors about them. Unlike silly tales of the some mysterious Section 57 or whatever the number was, it was probably even true, and in truth he’d been expecting something like this.
“No sir” the first said.
“We’re musicians” the other continued.
